Avsnitt
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Jeremy Garelick just wants to make people laugh. But to sustain an incredibly successful career doing that, he has solved some pretty knotty problems. In his twenties, he didn't know how to write a script but transformed himself from a production assistant into a sought-after screenwriter in just a few years. He would go on to co-write The Hangover.
When movie studios refused to make the kind of comedies he loves, because they thought the return on smaller films wasn't worth their effort, he purchased an old high school as a film set, kept costs low, and arranged his own financing. Today, he controls every aspect of production on a campus called American High.
While Hollywood struggles in the streaming era and sees diminishing returns from old, overused properties, Garelick has figured out his own business model, how to grab attention with original stories, and when he needs to, bypass the studio system, all in the service of jokes.
3:13 Garelick describes growing up in New York with no entertainment industry connections. A conversation with classmates about unusual summer experiences convinced him that he could pursue something beyond the familiar world around him.
4:20 Persistence and cold outreach led him to an internship at Disney through a producer’s office. There, he fell in love with screenplays and began writing extensive notes on scripts despite having no formal training.
9:35 No one ever asked the interns for their opinion, yet only a few years later he became one of Hollywood’s highest-paid screenwriters.
11:44 Interning with television legends David Milch and Steven Bochco before joining the talent agency CAA
15:00 Arriving in Florida for the filming of Tigerland and realizing immediately that directing movies was what he wanted to do with his life
19:08 The Hangover
28:46 Writing for stars Vince Vaughn, Adam Sandler, Kevin Hart, and Owen Wilson
30:36 Realizing that high school movies share many production requirements and that controlling the location could dramatically reduce costs. After learning about New York’s film tax incentives, he searched online for schools and found the perfect property.
37:30 The origin story of Rolling Loud
40:45 Why he is not afraid of artificial intelligence
44:12 Partnering with Hulu
53:17 Garelick is a creative first and a talented, but accidental, entrepreneur out of necessity
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There are pivotal moments that have the potential to change so much. We take on new jobs, new projects, get promoted, start hiring for a key role. When the right people coordinate during these small windows of time, great things can happen. But we may not hear about them until the opportunity to connect, do business, or celebrate together has passed.
A startup called Ren is fixing this by teeing up information about key moments happening to the people you know so that you can act. Camber Creek sat down with Ren Systems CEO Canay Deniz to talk about his mission to systematize serendipity, as he describes it, and why Camber Creek invested.
1:14 Canay shares his immigration story. Born in a refugee camp, he and his family received asylum in Switzerland, where he spent most of his childhood and received his education.
3:00 Canay describes joining an early-stage startup spun out of ETH Zurich, where he worked on predictive analytics for industrial equipment and telecommunications infrastructure.
7:30 On “engineered serendipity.” Many successful leaders repeatedly place themselves in situations where opportunity can emerge.
10:58 Contrasts between European and American attitudes toward risk, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
14:06 Ren’s central mission: helping people stop missing important moments in the lives of the people and organizations they care about.
17:00 Extensive customer interviews revealed a common problem among dealmakers: learning about important developments too late to act on them.
21:00 One user attributed a career-defining business win to information surfaced through Ren.
28:23 Why platforms like LinkedIn fall short for relationship management and business development.
32:24 Ren’s emphasis on simplicity, including AI-generated outreach suggestions and workflow automation. The platform learns a user’s communication style and becomes increasingly personalized over time.
39:00 Canay introduces one of Ren’s future initiatives: helping organizations determine the best person to facilitate an introduction to a target contact or company.
41:55 Avoiding generic-sounding AI-generated communication. In Canay’s view, purpose-built AI should amplify individuality rather than homogenize communication.
46:21 Ren’s security architecture isolates and protects sensitive customer information.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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Aza Nedhari set out to solve an enormous problem facing women giving birth. The US has the highest rate of maternal death of any high-income country, and within the US, that rate is by far the highest for Black women.
Researchers estimate that most of these deaths are preventable. To fix this, Aza helped invent a new type of community health worker, a perinatal community health worker, coordinating across medical professionals and generations of family members to reshape the environment around expecting mothers.
Over more than a decade, her organization, Mamatoto Village, has a perfect track record: four thousand families and zero maternal deaths. But what kind of toll does perfection take when navigating complex health systems, economic inequality, and bias? And how important is it to celebrate now when you know that eventually, statistically, you will lose at least one?
1:25 Mamatoto Village’s history and the story behind its name
4:45 The stark maternal mortality statistics facing Black women and why these disparities persist across income and education levels.
7:30 The unique challenges facing families in Washington, DC’s Wards 7 and 8, where maternal mortality rates are especially severe
9:20 Aza traces the roots of today’s maternal health inequities through American history, public policy, and healthcare system design.
11:45 Black patients often must advocate forcefully to receive appropriate healthcare and be heard by providers.
18:55 Serena Williams’ experience gave these disparities a national audience.
23:10 Mamatoto Village’s intervention model and how it operates on the ground. It’s a three-generation approach, educating not only mothers but also partners, grandparents, and extended family members.
25:30 The Perinatal Community Health Worker credential that Aza and her co-founder created
31:20 How do healthcare providers respond to Mamatoto’s involvement with patients?
34:45 Mamatoto Village’s extraordinary track record: over 4,000 families served with zero maternal deaths. But should they continue to tout that number?
44:40 The first time they met, Lionel made Aza cry.
46:15 Aza explains the immense personal weight of leading a social change organization and carrying community stories.
49:45 Aza reflects on sustainable leadership practices and the need for strong support systems around founders and social entrepreneurs.
55:00 Mamatoto Village’s proprietary electronic health record platform
58:40 Aza shares future initiatives, including a new birth center east of the river in Washington, DC
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If you can turn your business into a platform, you probably should. There are amazing multi-billion-dollar products out there, but any one product has limits. Companies that run platforms, by contrast, cultivate ecosystems that make it possible for other businesses and many products to thrive. That is a much bigger market.
Deb Liu knows a ton about platforms. It took years of advocacy and strategy, but she literally invented Facebook Marketplace and ran Facebook’s entire platform group, helping monetize the different ways users wanted to leverage the network. Now she’s founded an AI startup helping small businesses go from zero to fully automated.
Like platforms, Deb is multifaceted, so this conversation also goes deep on payments, the trust gaps that have to be filled to make online transactions possible, and some of the differences between running public and private companies.
1:40 Deb argues that any product with scale should become a platform that enables others to build businesses.
2:50 How APIs and developer ecosystems expanded Facebook’s reach
4:45 Observing user behavior and enabling emerging use cases
5:00 PayPal’s unexpected adoption by eBay sellers became its defining business opportunity.
7:00 Closing the trust gap in e-commerce enabled trillions of dollars in transactions.
8:50 PayPal was fundamentally a risk management company as much as a payments company.
11:50 Deb praises Starbucks’ rewards ecosystem as one of the strongest examples of customer lock-in and loyalty and argues that more brands should emulate it.
15:20 inKind as an example of how a platform uses stored value to drive consumer demand
20:00 Deb reflects on the pressure public companies face to manage earnings and expectations.
25:10 Why Deb chose to lead Ancestry.
27:45 How her engineering background shaped her systems-oriented mindset.
29:00 Everyone has a hidden superpower that often feels effortless to them.
32:10 Why Deb intentionally questions her own intuition.
35:10 Her new startup, Ember AI.
40:40 Deb compares today’s AI moment to the early internet and mobile eras.
43:00 Deb predicts that “fast eats slow” will define the next phase of competition.
43:40 Purpose is the fuel that sustains long-term entrepreneurship.
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After the public launch of ChatGPT, Salesforce knew that AI agents were coming for it. AI agents are smart, autonomous programs set loose on an infinite number of specific tasks. The danger was that this giant company that revolutionized business software and popularized the very concept of software as a service might be overtaken by the next big thing.
One of the people it turned to to help prevent that was Prasad Thammineni. Now Prasad has his own company, Agentman, which is focused on helping organizations deploy AI agents that can automate sophisticated workflows without requiring users to write code. In Prasad's view, yes, AI agents might be as disruptive as many people fear. But he's also convinced that, like Salesforce, we can adapt. It's still early enough that we can all choose to be pioneers.
1:30 Prasad reflects on his entrepreneurial journey and explains why he repeatedly returns to building startups.
2:55 How Salesforce recognized that AI agents could threaten traditional SaaS business models
4:00 The early limitations of copilots and why customer expectations initially exceeded technical capabilities
6:30 From copilots to agents
7:20 The creation of Salesforce’s Frontier AI team to prototype technologies expected to mature a year later
11:10 Prasad argues that large technology companies must lead publicly even while products remain unfinished.
17:20 How he landed the leadership role at Salesforce.\
19:20 Using AI to write the business model
23:50 Building AgentMan
28:40 Why AgentMan chose healthcare as its initial vertical
30:40 Healthcare organizations accelerated technology adoption after COVID.
31:40 Focusing on small practices rather than large hospital systems
38:40 Are end-users ready to build their own agents?
40:40 Are concerns about AI-driven job displacement justified?
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If you want to improve your local community, think like a developer.
Federal government programs spur billions of dollars of investment in real estate. For example, Opportunity Zones alone account for more than $14 billion per year in private investment driven by tax incentives.
But how do these programs work? What are we getting for all that spending? And how do the economic realities of building things in the US incentivize where money is and isn't placed? Brett Theodos can answer all of this. He's Director of the Center for Local Finance and Growth at the Urban Institute and a leading researcher in place-based development.
Whether you're a mission-driven investor, a for-profit real estate owner, or a neighborhood advocate, looking at community through the lens of capital, as Brett does in this conversation, is incredibly helpful. He spoke with Camber Creek Partner Alexandra Nicoletti and Head of Platform Lionel Foster.
1:40 Brett reflects on growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, and how living in a walkable, racially integrated community shaped his worldview.
4:00 The physical design of communities profoundly shapes social, economic, and political outcomes.
06:30 Brett evaluates the largest government-funded real estate investment programs in the country, including Opportunity Zones, New Markets Tax Credits, Choice Neighborhoods, and Community Development Block Grants. What are we getting for the billions we’re spending?
09:10 The US is pretty good at subsidizing new buildings in poor areas and supporting market-rate development in affluent ones, but struggles everywhere in between.
13:30 US housing and community development policy has increasingly shifted from direct spending toward tax incentives.
15:30 How Opportunity Zones became one of the least targeted federal economic development programs in US history
25:10 Tax-credit programs create significant barriers to entry because of legal and financial complexity.
27:00 Brett praises smaller developers willing to invest in uncertain or declining markets for undertaking socially valuable work.
29:00 Financing gaps, regulation, labor shortages, tariffs, and demographic shifts continue to constrain housing supply.
30:00 The unrealized promise of automation and prefabrication in lowering construction costs
31:00 Policymakers underestimate the human and entrepreneurial realities developers face when deciding whether to pursue projects.
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At the University of Maryland, the actor Kevin Bacon funded a “Shark Tank”-style competition for young social entrepreneurs. Instead of investing in skincare brands or gourmet cookies, judges heard pitches from students who wanted to right some wrongs in the world and help people.
That competition grew into the University of Maryland's Do Good Institute, which supports classes and research and uses social entrepreneurship to help students learn, lead, and grow. Camber Creek spoke with Jenny Cox and Nathan Dietz from the Institute about what happens to a giant college campus when an entrepreneurial mindset is taught, encouraged, and rewarded.
1:20 The Do Good Institute is a hub for social impact providing funding, education, and resources to students.
2:10 The Institute’s research function and focus on measuring the impact of social entrepreneurship programs
3:30 Expanding programming, from early student engagement to post-graduate entrepreneurial support
6:30 A student-led effort to reduce campus food waste led to the creation of the first Do Good Challenge.
8:00 Collaborating with Kevin Bacon’s foundation
12:50 Social entrepreneurship follows the same disciplined, problem-solving mindset as traditional entrepreneurship.
19:00 Intermediate and advanced offerings, including incubators, accelerators, and seed funding programs.
21:15 Approximately 10–15% of University of Maryland College Park students engage directly with Do Good programming.
29:30 Students increasingly want both financial success and social impact.
41:45 The Do Good Institute wants to do its part to counteract a broader trend of declining interpersonal connection
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Nurses are on the front lines of public health. They work in hospitals and sometimes in people’s homes. They’re trained to meet people where they are and communicate across patients, doctors, and policymakers.
Nurses are, in effect, some of the medical field’s best diplomats. And today, those skills are being put to the test. The US population is aging at exactly the same time the federal government is cutting health research funding and creating an environment that incentivizes top talent from around the world to study or work elsewhere.
One of the foremost leaders navigating this difficult inflection point is Sarah Szanton, dean of one of the top-ranked schools of nursing in the world at Johns Hopkins University. Sarah sees what’s coming for all of us. The current problems in US healthcare are real, but nurses like Sarah stand out as a source of hope.
1:20 There are mounting pressures on nursing education, healthcare, and research.
4:20 The ripple effects of federal funding delays across faculty, staff, and students
6:45 Recent policy changes are disrupting a system optimized for high-level research output.
11:10 Sarah’s path from policy work on Capitol Hill to becoming a nurse. Nurses’ role as communicators and translators across stakeholders drew her into the profession.
14:00 The historical shift that made nursing a predominantly female profession and current efforts to make the field more inclusive.
16:25 The role of immigration in sustaining the US nursing workforce
19:00 Nurses are a big part of the response to an aging US population.
21:55 Community-based healthcare innovations driven by nursing and neighborhood nursing
28:15 Lionel reflects on the importance of communication in healthcare, sharing personal experiences with loss.
30:50 Nurses are trained to support not just patients but families through critical moments.
34:30 Funding and immigration shifts may push talent to other countries.
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The company Michael Rudin helps lead is extraordinary. It's more than 100 years old. There are dozens of countries that are younger than that. It's a family business, so personal and professional ties are inextricable. And every asset is in New York City, thus subject to all the local, global, political and economic events that have shaped and sometimes disrupted New York since 1925.
That's a lot to navigate, but as Co-CEO of one of the largest privately owned real estate firms in New York, Michael Rudin seems to manage it all very, very calmly. He talked about Rudin, his family's business, with Camber Creek General Partner, Jeffrey Berman.
1:05 Rudin’s legacy and its role in shaping New York City
3:40 The real estate investment landscape has evolved from local capital to a highly competitive global market.
5:20 Rudin historically self-capitalized projects but increasingly partners with external investors.
9:45 The portfolio includes 13 million square feet and thousands of residential units.
11:00 Rudin’s integrated model of owning and managing its properties
12:00 The influence of family-owned real estate firms relative to institutional investors
13:30 The role of real estate leaders in shaping policy and maintaining New York’s economic vitality.
17:15 Rudin’s relationship with New York City leadership and evolving political dynamics
21:35 Three recent defining moments for New York City real estate
24:40 Michael reflects on the emotional and operational impact of a mass shooting at one of Rudin’s buildings
30:20 Joining the family business
34:20 Transitioning to co-CEO and the division of responsibility
38:30 Making decisions in a family-run organization.
42:30 Enlightened self-interest as a guiding principle for decision-making
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At five feet tall, Amy Norman has periodically been misjudged or overlooked. Even after earning an MBA from one of the most prestigious business schools in the country, she was told she did not have enough gravitas.
She felt self-conscious using some stellar credentials to start a business focused on children, and every venture capital firm she spoke with turned her down. But she just kept going—for 14 years, 15 million units sold, and onto a successful sale of that company—the first of two she would found.
Amy is honest about how hard it was. She tells the women who want to become founders and come to her for advice that the idea that you can have it all—a high-growth company, a family, and all the time you'd want for other people and pursuits—is a myth. But you can, she insists, define what's most meaningful for you, then shape your life accordingly.
1:20 Amy describes her childhood moving between the US and the UK and how it shaped her worldview.
2:40 Amy’s first business, Little Passports, and its mission to expand children’s understanding of the world
3:30 Scaling to millions of units sold with a subscription model
4:00 Amy’s elite business pedigree (McKinsey, Wharton) and her unconventional entrepreneurial path
5:30 Realizing money was not her primary motivator, prioritizing purpose over prestige
6:30 A supervisor at McKinsey told her, “You don’t have enough gravitas”
10:30 The difficulty of raising venture capital for a children’s physical product business. What she did instead.
13:10 Facebook ads superchargers Little Passports’ growth
18:30 “Having it all” is a myth.
21:20 Exiting Little Passports
22:50 COVID was a boon to the business.
24:20 Selling a company is hard.
25:45 “I’m not a great employee.”
25:50 Founding Nellie Travel, a luxury travel advisory firm.
26:30 The value proposition of high-touch travel planning and personalized experiences
29:50 Acquiring customers
30:30 How geopolitical factors influence inbound and outbound travel patterns
34:20 Will Amy ever retire?
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Local news is on life support in the US. Since 2005, more than 3,200 print newspapers have closed or merged. That is a staggering number. But different business models have sprung up to fill that gap, including digital-only and non-profit ventures like a startup media company in Maryland’s biggest city, the Baltimore Banner.
How are communities affected when local events simply never become stories? How does removing the profit motive change the way the news is produced? And what's it like competing with a nearly 200-year-old incumbent? We put those questions to Julie Sharper, an enterprise reporter for the Banner.
2:45 Julie’s pattern of deep but shifting interests became an asset in journalism.
4:25 Julie is short, but people underestimate her at their peril.
7:00 The Baltimore Banner is a nonprofit, digital-first newsroom.
8:15 The nonprofit model shifts focus away from shareholder pressure (because there are no shareholders) toward journalism quality.
8:50 How does the Banner differ from the biggest paper in Maryland, Julie’s former employer, The Baltimore Sun?
11:30 In a digital-first newsroom, does anyone need to show up to the office?
14:05 The Banner’s financial model and how it sustains growth. Subscriptions make advertising revenue important but less central.
16:05 What is an enterprise reporter?
18:30 Covering city hall.
20:00 Why don’t more behind-the-scenes conflicts make it into published stories?
25:30 Investigating Baltimore Ravens player Justin Tucker.
28:30 The challenges of protecting anonymous sources while maintaining legal rigor.
31:00 Why legacy media organizations may hesitate to pursue big stories
33:30 The emotional toll and eventual validation of the reporting
34:50 The broader impact of local journalism on institutional accountability
38:10 The role of AI in journalism. Julie believes it will not replace core reporting or writing functions.
40:00 Baltimore’s reputation and how outsiders perceive the city
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Josh Goldman would never describe himself this way, but he may be one of the most important people in the world. As co-founder of KoBold Metals he has helped develop technologies that do a much better job finding deposits of lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper, and do so at a fraction of the billions of dollars that have become the industry average.
These are items on a shortlist of what governments call critical minerals, which are vital for energy production. So, basically, Josh and his colleagues are helping keep the lights on. For example, KoBold uncovered what it projects will be one of the largest copper mines in the world. That deposit in Zambia is one reason the company, a startup, is already worth a few billion dollars.
To reach this point, Josh and his team have had to solve tough scientific problems, navigate domestic and international politics, and take a firm stance against corruption. He credits his training as a physicist with helping him think through the things that really matter and how to approach them.
1:20 Josh reflects on his early identity as a physicist and how that shaped his thinking. Physics trains strong first-principles thinkers and generalists. But the day-to-day of being a scientist is tedious.
6:00 Why KoBold Metals has a chief philosopher
6:30 The mission to discover critical mineral deposits needed for electrification and AI-driven infrastructure
7:45 The core challenge: finding hidden mineral deposits deep underground where traditional methods fail.
12:00 Josh explains his transition from academia to consulting and eventually to the energy sector.
14:10 The scarcity is not minerals themselves but knowledge of where concentrated deposits exist.
22:00 How KoBold Metals decides where to explore, including logistical, financial, and social considerations
23:30 What it's like to make a big find
27:25 Fundraising to fund a company most people won't understand
28:45 The decision to not sell technology as a service but deploy it directly in exploration
30:10 Integrating scientists, engineers, and technologists into one team.
32:15 KoBold got a number of foundational business decisions right early on.
35:45 Navigating ethical consideration and geopolitics
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Whatever industry you’re in, there’s probably a specialist media outlet that you consult on a regular basis. You’re familiar with what they write, but what does that publication look like on the inside? How do they define you, their audience? And what is it you should know to improve the likelihood that they’ll highlight your company?
As President of HW Media, Diego Sanchez has answers to all of these questions for one of the most important publications in the housing industry, HousingWire. Housing is such a big topic and growing even bigger given the current affordability crisis. So Diego could go after a large, broad audience. But that’s not what HousingWire is doing at all.
Diego and his team care most about a group of industry leaders and insiders that, if put in one place, would constitute a mid-sized US city. This approach is targeted, thoughtful, and may be a model for how to break through an incredibly noisy information environment.
1:30 Diego outlines his early career in investment banking at Credit Suisse and the skills he developed there along with his time at Microsoft.
7:20 Defining HousingWire’s core audience: 200,000–250,000 high-value professionals
10:45 HousingWire’s revenue model. Striving to become the “Bloomberg of housing.”
17:30 Integrating AI into products to enhance analysis and user experience
22:30 The trade-offs between investing in editorial content versus product development
26:30 How private equity ownership influences HousingWire’s strategy
27:10 HousingWire’s four core user personas: C-suite executives, capital markets leaders, homebuilders, and top-producing agents and loan originators.
32:30 Advice for professionals pitching stories to HousingWire
35:20 Will HousingWire branch out into multifamily?
39:35 Housing policy is hardly ever in the news as much as it is now. And that's not necessarily a good thing.
43:15 Are industry awards programs pay to play? Why HousingWire is not incentivized to play that game.
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Does this sound familiar? You’re on a phone call. You tell the person on the other end that you're really craving barbecue for dinner, and within minutes, one of the apps you use serves you an ad for brisket. Or worse yet, you're not even on your phone when you say this, but the ad still finds you.
By some estimates, more than half of Americans believe their smartphones are spying on them, recording every word they say. To be clear, there’s no evidence that this is true, but the suspicion persists. Digital advertising can feel creepy.
Jeremy Hlavacek feels your pain. He’s run programmatic advertising operations for big companies like The Weather Channel, IBM’s Watson division, and Experian. An industry veteran, Jeremy has advice for entrepreneurs thinking about how to get their companies noticed, and he believes there’s a big difference between what advertising platforms can do and what they should do.
3:00 Jeremy describes his entry into the early internet era and how digital advertising emerged as a new career path.
4:10 Smartphones are not listening to users, but highly accurate predictions are driven by vast amounts of behavioral data.
5:05 How modern digital advertising uses demographic data and AI to target consumers far more precisely than traditional media.
6:00 Predictive algorithms have become so effective that they can feel invasive, even when they are not.
8:10 The rapid evolution of major tech platforms like Google, Amazon, and Facebook and their growing predictive power.
10:10 The rules that govern digital advertising.
11:40 Everyday digital interactions, like web browsing and app usage, generate valuable consumer data.
15:20 There are many more companies tracking you than you might think.
18:00 You can opt out from a lot of this.
20:30 Can digital marketing change human behavior?
26:00 Advertising has shifted away from traditional content-based media into platforms like search and commerce.
32:20 Companies like Walmart are building their own advertising capabilities through acquisitions, partnerships, and internal development.
35:20 Products like ChatGPT attract attention and inevitably create opportunities for advertising.
39:10 How venture-backed startups can avoid wasting money on digital ads.
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Bruce Toll, working with his brother Robert, built Toll Brothers from two houses in Pennsylvania into one of the largest home builders in America, which today has a $15 billion market capitalization.
We wanted to find out how he managed this, because housing is a very local product. Most local developers don't become regional players, and practically no one reaches national scale. But Bruce Toll just keeps going.
Real estate has been his base. However, he also has large positions in healthcare, natural resources, and even produced more than 100 films.
During this conversation with Camber Creek General Partner Jeffrey Berman, it became clear that Mr. Toll invests as much in people as he does in businesses. His relationships open unexpected opportunities and new spaces where he can build.
1:20 Learning the business from his father
2:37 Founding Toll Brothers and building the first two homes outside of Philadelphia
6:00 Early growth happened organically. It was not the result of a deliberate scaling strategy.
8:00 Abundant labor and strong housing demand in the 1960s made it relatively easy to assemble construction teams.
12:25 His father tells him to build more upscale homes because they’ll face less competition in that part of the market.
14:29 How housing design preferences have evolved
18:51 Pioneering uses of modular construction processes
22:21 Supply chains are now global, not just domestic.
25:10 The advantages of working with family.
26:20 Why Toll Brothers went public and what that enabled
29:35 Stepping away from day-to-day leadership of Toll Brothers and focusing on a wide array of other ventures through his family office, BET Investments
32:25 Producing more than 100 films through a partnership with Sidney Kimmel.
36:35 Bruce Toll talks about the industries he would pursue if he were starting out today
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Before he founded what became one of the larger independent organic food companies in Southern Ontario, Canada, Ran Goel was not overly occupied with food trends. He started paying attention when he realized what we eat is a gateway to many other things he cares about, like land use, health, and addressing income inequality.
1:26 Ran’s unexpected transition from Wall Street lawyer to leader in the organic food space
3:10 Ran came to see food as a lever for addressing climate change, biodiversity loss, and human rights concerns.
9:05 Fresh City Farm’s early days as an urban farm and the tangible seed-to-table experience that shaped the company’s ethos.
11:20 The evolution from Fresh City Farm to Mama Earth Organics
16:10 Why Mama Earth Organics believes vertical integration is necessary—for now
19:05 What is the value proposition of organic and locally sourced food?
25:40 Why food has become intertwined with identity and self-expression over the past two decades
27:45 Mama Earth’s own evolution from a slightly paternalistic model to a more inclusive, less judgmental brand
29:20 Would scaling organic and local food nationwide inevitably make it more expensive?
32:40 AI and robotics could lower food production costs.
34:00 Today’s food systems favor shelf-stable, highly processed products.
36:15 But cultural norms are powerful. There has been a positive shift in consumption patterns, including declining red meat, sugary drink, and alcohol consumption.
38:00 Can you make money in this business?
39:50 Community contributions, public goods, and the cumulative impact of small, consistent actions
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In the early days of the mobile web, when Harley Miller decided he wanted to focus on consumer businesses—after many investors felt they’d been burned by brands that failed—he faced criticism. Then he made a whole lot of money with companies like Delivery Hero, HelloFresh, and The Farmer’s Dog, just to name a few.
Some look at the millions of customer transactions it would take before a consumer brand could produce the kind of returns that would justify venture capital funding as too risky and too much of a long shot. But what Harley sees in all those numbers is data, which, if studied, can make a company’s growth potential clear.
He explained his approach to Camber Creek General Partner Jeffrey Berman and Head of Platform Lionel Foster.
1:45 Harley’s first business: Camp Harley Baseball
6:35 Harley describes his decade at Insight Partners and why he chose to focus on consumer internet investing despite skepticism from traditional enterprise software investors.
7:27 How the rise of mobile transformed consumer categories from transactional novelties into durable, high-frequency digital businesses.
9:15 The “Google toothbrush rule”, a heuristic for identifying businesses with habitual, recurring customer behavior.
12:35 Is great consumer investing more mathematical (market size and frequency) or subjective (founder quality and vision).
13:30 Harley explains his “race versus jockey” framework, balancing total addressable market with founder obsession and execution.
16:20 Building a fund within a fund
17:15 Left Lane uses granular customer data to evaluate product-market fit earlier and more empirically than most venture investors.
19:15 Spinning out of Insight in 2019, receiving track-record attribution and a significant anchor commitment
21:50 Raising Left Lane’s $630 million debut fund and navigating deployment through COVID and the zero-interest-rate era.
22:45 Raising a $1.4 billion second fund, adapting to market corrections, and maintaining discipline after pandemic-era exuberance.
25:00 Finding “unfair” customer acquisition advantages, like Ryan Serhant’s personal brand and Bilt’s multifamily channel partnerships.
33:30 Kings League, a global seven-on-seven soccer league co-founded by Gerard Piqué that blends sport, streaming culture, and built-in influencer distribution
40:05 SERHANT. and the impact of the Netflix series Owning Manhattan on brand equity and distribution.
44:30 SERHANT.’s long-term empire-building ambitions and the synergy between Camber Creek’s domain expertise and Left Lane’s consumer lens
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In 2013, Jason Green left his position at the White House—a position he had worked most of his life to obtain—to sit with his terminally ill grandmother and be an audience for the stories she knew about their family and the community they all grew up in.
If you stop the description there, it may sound quaint and commendable. But what he learned was that the person he thought of as “Sweet Grandma Green” was a community organizer—and a bit of a radical—who helped merge three churches, two white and one Black, shortly after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Jason thought he would be the family archivist. Instead, he became convinced that the ordinary people he loved and grew up with had something urgent to teach us about the unfinished work of American democracy.
His new book is Too Precious to Lose: A Memoir of Family, Community, and Possibility. We spoke a few weeks before its publication.
1:18 Jason’s book is about hope rooted in lived experience rather than abstract optimism.
2:40 Jason’s multifaceted background and his time in the White House.
4:40 Jason recounts working on local and national political campaigns, including witnessing Barack Obama’s 2004 DNC speech and deciding to support his presidential run.
6:10 Jason’s uncynical view of politics
10:00 Leaving a “good government job”
11:00 Money can be a catalyst rather than a corrupting force
16:30 The power of intergenerational conversations
18:50 Quince Orchard, its farming roots and segregated history
21:00 The Black and white Methodist congregations in Quince Orchard lived parallel but largely separate lives for decades.
23:00 Economic decline and shrinking membership force the congregations to confront the possibility of merging.
24:20 The impact of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination
27:00 Jason’s initial disbelief upon learning that his own grandmother helped lead what he now recognizes as a radical act of integration
29:00 The real miracle was not simply coming together but the decades-long commitment to staying together.
36:00 Civic infrastructure and small relational bridges make large-scale reconciliation possible when crises strike.
40:00 Jason’s 102-year-old great-uncle still drives weekly to the integrated church.
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Energy costs keep rising. In October 2025, at least four states saw utility revenue per kilowatt hour jump more than 20% year over year, and more than 10 states saw increases in the double digits. Most Americans haven’t seen headlines like this since the oil embargo during the Carter administration.
Heather Reams knows what it will take to fix this. As President and CEO of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, she leads an effort to find solutions that Republicans can say yes to. She’s a Republican talking to Republicans about meeting others in the middle on issues like climate change and sustainability.
The good news is that while bipartisanship is hard, Heather has proof that compromise solutions are more durable. The bad news is that she believes we may need a “do-something moment”—an acute crisis—before there’s enough focus and political will to fix the electricity grid.
1:30 The mission of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES). Why engaging Republicans on climate and energy policy is central to durable reform.
5:30 Heather has seen Republicans become more willing to acknowledge climate change.
6:40 Meeting lawmakers where they are, using state-specific economic and employment realities
8:20 Solar and clean energy have gained Republican support in regions where they create local economic benefits.
11:43 Advocacy organizations help count votes and build coalitions.
16:40 The US has abundant energy resources but struggles with transmission, permitting, and grid constraints.
22:00 In Heather’s view, divided government often produces better bipartisan solutions on major issues.
22:30 Energy transmission reform may require compromise on states’ rights and federal authority.
23:00 Heather introduces the idea of a “do-something moment,” a crisis forcing policymakers to act
27:00 How the business community fits into energy and climate policymaking.
35:02 CRES’s biggest accomplishments
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ChatGPT is biased. So are Claude, Gemini, Grok, and even non-computer-based reasoning systems—that is, people. Computers have inherited and amplified many of our blind spots.
But is it okay to acknowledge that? And if it is, what should we do about it?
John Pasmore is answering that question.
John is founder and CEO of Latimer, a model that can work on its own or in concert with larger foundation models to create more robust and accurate results for queries that require an understanding of Black history.
Latimer has traction with educational institutions and a partnership with Grammarly—early signs of success. But what is the right metaphor for Latimer’s function? If it’s relevant only for specific queries, maybe it’s a microscope. But if foundation models simply aren’t comprehensive enough, then tools like Latimer are more like glasses or contact lenses—something people need to use far more often.
Which analogy customers agree with may determine the company’s trajectory.
3:20 How dissatisfaction with corporate banking culture motivated John to pursue entrepreneurship full-time.
3:50 Growing a nightlife guide into a profitable print magazine and ultimately leaving banking to focus on media.
6:40 Getting Russell Simmons’ attention and bringing him on as a partner
7:30 Present at the creation of hip hop’s boom
12:10 Wanting a deeper understanding of how technology actually works so much that he pursued another degree
15:30 John describes identifying bias in AI as both a moral issue and a commercial opportunity.
20:00 Partnering with universities, including HBCUs, to digitize and activate archival materials
22:10 Latimer plans to create a marketplace where content owners can license data on their own terms.
25:00 How Latimer measures and benchmarks bias-reduction in AI outputs.
27:30 Political resistance complicates conversations about bias and inclusivity in AI.
28:30 Latimer’s relevance in healthcare
32:30 John explains why he is not interested in selling Latimer to a large tech company.
35:50 John confirms that the company is approaching cash-flow positivity and preparing for a major announcement.
- Visa fler
